South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) swept to power in 1994 on a pledge to “build a better life for all,” winning almost 63% of the vote in the country’s first democratic election.
Fast-forward 30 years and Nelson Mandela’s erstwhile liberation movement, which triumphed over the racist apartheid government, risks losing its parliamentary majority for the first time, according to opinion polls and analysts.
When South Africans vote Wednesday, an unhappy combination of rampant corruption, soaring joblessness, crippling power cuts and feeble economic growth will likely be top of mind.
The economy has gone backward over the past decade, evidenced by a sharp fall in living standards. According to the World Bank, gross domestic product per capita has fallen from a peak in 2011, leaving the average South African 23% poorer.
A third of the labor force is unemployed, more than in war-torn Sudan, and the highest rate of any country tracked by the World Bank. Income inequality is also the world’s worst. There are 18.4 million people on welfare benefits, compared with just 7 million taxpayers, according to Oxford Economics, a consultancy.
Black South Africans, who make up 81% of the population, are at the sharp end of this dire situation. Unemployment and poverty remain concentrated in the Black majority, in large part due to the failure of public schooling, while most White South Africans have jobs and command considerably higher wages.
Moreover, the government’s flagship policy for driving economic inclusion and racial equality in post-apartheid South Africa — Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, known as triple-BEE or simply BEE — has failed to achieve its aims, with wealth still concentrated in the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
“Three decades after the end of apartheid, the economy is defined by stagnation and exclusion, and current strategies are not achieving inclusion and empowerment in practice,” Harvard University concluded in a report published in November by its Growth Lab following two years of research.
‘Elite enrichment’
Under apartheid — and colonial rule before that — Black South Africans were violently oppressed and denied many basic human rights. They were also systematically excluded from owning land, living in certain areas, and accessing a decent education and jobs.
The end of White minority rule could not on its own compensate for such extreme and prolonged injustice. Restitution was needed — and that’s what BEE set out to deliver.
There is now almost universal agreement that the policy failed to transform economic reality for the majority of Black and other South Africans who were historically disadvantaged, including Indians and Coloureds, the official term for South Africans with mixed heritage who have a distinct cultural identity.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, who has previously described BEE as “a must for (economic) growth,” promised Saturday the ANC would “do better” if reelected, with a focus on creating more jobs. The Democratic Alliance, the official opposition party, has said it would replace BEE with an “Economic Justice policy” that “targets the poor black majority for redress, rather than a small, connected elite.”